Table of Contents
Context
Chapter 9 of Volume 2 of the PEIR presents the preliminary climate change assessment, which considers the resilience of the Proposed Development to climate change and whether the effects of the Proposed Development on receptors in the surrounding environment would be different when considering the impacts of climate change.
The UK climate projections outline that with climate change the UK will experience the following changes:
- the annual number of heatwaves is expected to increase;
- the annual number of frost days is expected to decrease;
- the number of dry spells (defined as ten or more consecutive days without precipitation) is expected to increase; and
- the number of days with heavy rain (precipitation higher than 25mm/day) is expected to increase.
Mitigation measures
A range of measures is proposed in response to the predicted effects of climate change. These include, but are not limited to the following:
Construction
- the Draft CoCP requires contractors to monitor and plan for severe weather events and to register on the Environment Agency’s flood warning service in areas of flood risk;
- the lead contractors’ environmental management system would consider all measures deemed necessary and appropriate to manage the impact of severe weather events and would, as a minimum, cover training of personnel and prevention and monitoring arrangements; and
- as far as reasonably practicable, contractors would also be required to use construction materials with superior properties that offer increased tolerance to fluctuating temperatures, heavy precipitation and other impacts due to extreme weather events such as increased and more severe storm events.
Operation
- with regards to climate change resilience, adaptive capacity to climate change would be included in the design of buildings, surface access routes, taxiways, aprons and other airside and airfield assets in line with appropriate design guidance, where available. For example;
- the drainage strategy of the Proposed Development will be designed to accommodate an increase in surface water flows due to climate change;
- measures to reduce water demand are built into the Proposed Development, for example rainwater harvesting from the roofs would allow greywater storage and re-use where practicable and appropriate;
- landscape strategy will take into consideration climate change in the selection of appropriate species for planting and habitat creation and provide adequate monitoring post-planting; and
- assets would be maintained regularly to detect deterioration and damage caused by extreme weather events such as storms through maintenance and monitoring.
In addition, mitigation described for other topic assessments also accounts for the effects of climate change, specifically mitigation set out for air quality, biodiversity, health and community, landscape and visual effects, soils and geology, and water resources.
Likely significant effects
Construction
The preliminary assessment has considered how hazards related to climate change, such as extreme weather events, could impact construction. The assessment identified no likely significant effects with the proposed embedded and best practice mitigation measures in place.
In addition, the assessment considered whether with climate change, construction effects identified by other topic assessments could become worse. When the proposed measures are put in place to mitigate for the projected changes in climate, no likely significant effects were identified.
Operation
The preliminary assessment has considered how climate change hazards, such as extreme weather events, increased temperature variability, precipitation and drought, could impact the design and operation of the Proposed Development. The assessment concluded that with the proposed mitigation in place, no significant effects are likely.
The assessment also considered whether with climate change, operational effects identified by other topic assessments could become worse. With appropriate mitigation in place, as described above, no likely significant effects were identified.
Completing the assessment
The climate change resilience assessment will be reviewed and updated to reflect any amendments to the design as its development continues. Further engagement with stakeholders will be undertaken to discuss and inform the climate change resilience assessment for the ES.
In addition, the in-combination climate change impact assessment will be updated, to consider any changes to the effects determined by other topic assessments within the context of climate change.